


Such a Feeling Loss

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: If there was no peace to be had, Tybalt would at least have honor.
Relationships: Mercutio/Romeo Montague (one-sided), Mercutio/Tybalt (past)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Such a Feeling Loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pensysto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pensysto/gifts).



Romeo Montague is a _brat,_ a milksop pup who saunters around town and gives flowers to pretty girls with a charming smile like he has no other care in the world than to be charming and spout ballads and sonnets at every turn. He is attractive, well mannered, well dressed, soft-spoken, respected by older men and aging women as the epitome of what a respectful young man should be – and Tybalt _hates_ him. All Montagues are sanctimonious, frivolous fools, true. Just the other day Benvolio Montague had the nerve to preach to him about peace and civility, all in the middle of a brawl with naked steel in his hands, likely just waiting for Tybalt to turn his back. But Romeo is the worst of them exactly because he has everyone fooled, even Tybalt’s noble uncle. 

But Tybalt is no fool. He can see behind that façade, behind the doe eyes and lilting boyish notes of his voice. At least Benvolio has the courage to stand and draw a sword, to find a shred of honor somewhere within that Montague breast of his. Romeo acts the maid without being one, and Tybalt can smell the danger in a man like that from a mile away. There is nothing natural, nothing honorable in his way – the insidious seduction, the sweet aroma of a carnivorous plant. 

What a fool Mercutio is to fall for it, to subjugate himself to it. True that Mercutio is a brute in many ways, even if he dresses like a flamboyant peacock. But to hear him speak and to see him fight – a proper man’s tolerance would be tested. He gets it from his loose mother who bore him from a man far below her station and married just as low. But even Tybalt has to acknowledge Mercutio’s bravery and, yes, his biting, if uncouth, wit. To see all that splendor of strength and brazen gall subjected to a Montague hatchling snake is a damn shame. 

And yet, here they are. And Tybalt will not let his pursuit of justice and honor be bit in the bud – not by Benvolio’s hypocritical peace entreaties, nor by Mercutio’s snarling of a protective purebred hound. 

Tybalt looks around to the Capulets following him dutifully and says, “Follow me closely, for I will speak to them.” 

*~*

_Tybalt’s father commissioned the family portrait when Tybalt was six years old. It hung in the family drawing room for as long as Tybalt remembered that house – a grand peace of work that covered the entire wall. His father stood proud and strong in the center behind his and his mother’s ornate chairs. His mother was smiling faintly in the portrait, her skin, unbearably pale in life, softened to a radiant peach glow by the commissioned artist. Tybalt sat on the chair beside hers, his hands folded in his lap like his mother and his back straight like his father. Even back then everyone said he had a very proud and fierce look to him._

_His mother was a Capulet, a daughter of a minor branch of that noble and ancient house. She was always very proud of it, from what Tybalt could remember. She wore red often and had kept a number of exquisite broaches engraved with the Capulet coat of arms. But she was delicate and not naturally suited to childbirth, to which she had succumbed only three years after the family portrait was painted._

_Tybalt knew the Capulet family better than he knew his father’s. His mother would sit him on her lap and take his hand in hers, gently trace his fingers over the names in a large, leather bound book, as she explained their significance to him: “Your grandfather, Antonio, and this is his brother, Stefano. Your great grandfather, Giovanni.” Tybalt flipped through the thick pages of the book, with its engravings and decorative print, and felt a sense of awe, watching the lines of his heritage sink back into the deep, unknowable past._

_“Is Juliet’s father in this book?” Tybalt asked once, after meeting his baby cousin for the first time at an extravagant garden party that seemed to have hundreds of people in attendance. The party was not in her honor, but in the honor of the birth of Juliet’s brother, Marcello, was meant to be – but in truth never became – the future Lord Capulet._

_His mother smiled, a little sadly, and showed him Lucio Capulet’s name. “Lucio is my third cousin, but you are his nephew by marriage. He is Lord Capulet now, and little Marcello will be Lord Capulet after him.”_

_Tybalt nodded. Lord Capulet, although ostensibly his uncle, felt like a very far-off figure, a king up in a high castle, while Tybalt was merely a lonely knight guarding an outpost. Perhaps that was because he was not meant to really be a Capulet, although he was bound to that House both by blood and, quite intimately, by marriage. But his name was Argenti, not Capulet, even if he felt more like a Capulet that anything else._

_His father died not a year after his mother, in a strange set of circumstances Tybalt was never fully enlightened about. It shouldn’t have happened. His father was not a Capulet, he had no business involving himself in the Capulet-Montague feud, other than that his beloved sister and his beloved wife had invested him in that identity to the extent that he, much like Tybalt, felt a duty to that House. He was not the Argenti heir – that was his elder brother – so he became a faithful Capulet retainer instead._

_And yet, it still should not have happened._

_There was supposed to be a truce, or so Tybalt had heard. Lord Capulet, two sons in the grave and the third a stillborn, seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that House Capulet was lacking of heirs and it could not spare any more young men, as few as there were, to the feud. He was still determined to have a son, but Capulets knew well enough that the family was afflicted with the_ curse of daughters _, and having already seen the luck of three boys, there was reasonable fear that no more would follow. Lord Montague, for his part, had one child – to his joy a boy – and no more seemed to follow. Rumor had it that the boy’s birth was so difficult that Lady Montague was no longer fit to have children._

_Tybalt was too young to know the delicacies and intricacies of these things at the time. All he knew was that his father had knelt before him one night and said, “Whatever is to happen in your life, my son, you must have honor. I will do what I can to secure your future, your peace, but you must be brave in the face of anything. And honorable. Do you understand?” Tybalt looked into his father’s hard and handsome face and nodded like he understood._

_He snuck out of his room that night to eavesdrop at the top of the stairs – his father and cousin arguing in heated half-whispers in his father’s study. Tybalt’s cousin Valentio was much older than him, closer to his Aunt Lucrezia’s age, and he spoke to his father as though they were equals._

_“Don’t get involved,” Valentio was saying, hushed and hurried. “I know you think it will all be for the best. That there can be trust placed in this, but if Lucio was so certain, he would not be taking dozens of men with him. Why is Jacopo not going with him, if it is all so settled?”_

_Tybalt heard his father sigh. He could imagine him running a hand over his forehead, a glass of whisky in hand. “Jacopo is old.”_

_“That only matters if you plan to wield a sword. You have a son! Think of your son.”_

_“I_ am _thinking of him. My family needs me to do this, to be beside them. My sister—my wife’s family. I must.”_

_There was silence and mutterings that Tybalt could not quite distinguish. At last, he heard his father say with a note of finality. “Worry not. We have been promised peace.”_

_There was movement below and Tybalt snuck off back to bed as not to be caught. He lay awake and wondered at the affairs of adults for a while, before drifting off to sleep. He trusted his father, who had taught him so much about honor and strength. He feared very little as he fell asleep._

_In the morning, cousin Valentio woke him up with a hand on his shoulder and a grim look on his face. “Wake up, boy,” he said, a little too softly. “You must come now and dress as your tutor bids you.”_

_“Where is my father?” Tybalt asked, a strange sinking feeling in his stomach. “He had gone to treaty with the Montagues, I know.”_

_Valentio shook his head. “Your father is dead.”  
_  
*~*

His father had wanted peace and gotten none. Tybalt knew to not fall for it. If there was no peace to be had, he would at least have honor. 

Mercutio smirks at him, insolent and cocky. “But one word with one of us? Couple it with something. Make it a word and a blow.” His hand is already on the grip of his sword. He’s always quick to fight, but Tybalt thinks that this time it must be different. He sees it behind the curl of his mouth and the hard glint in his eyes. Mercutio thinks he can protect Romeo like this, distract Tybalt from his course. 

Tybalt will not allow him this pleasure, will not lose his poise. Mercutio should know better. “Mercutio, you consort with Romeo.” It’s a statement and an accusation, but not a question, and by the way Mercutio almost snarls at him, Tybalt knows he has hit his mark. More than that it seems – _ah yes,_ Tybalt thinks bitterly, _the pup has not given you what you seek, then, Mercutio. He has only smiled at you sweetly and laughed at your jokes, but he is far too occupied with maids and poetry to have any use for your lascivious desires.  
_  
Benvolio tries to intervene, a hand on Mercutio’s shoulder, unease in his eyes. He will fight if he must, but he chooses not to. A proud, sanctimonious little Montague, though he engenders more respect in Tybalt than Romeo. And less hatred, though more irritation. Tybalt has no real desire to fight Mercutio – that is a fight he has had before, but he would like to cross swords with Benvolio, test his steel, try his patience and his constant awareness. He would like to see that throat work to catch stolen breaths of air between strikes, and to watch the tension in his arms as he leans his weight into his sword, Tybalt taunting him, not letting him disengage and not allowing him through. He would like to fight Benvolio, but he knows he will likely not get a true chance. 

Benvolio’s meddling does give him one gift: the Montague brat’s appearance. Romeo looks as radiant as always, standing at the top of the steps, coming down them like a king who owns the world, confusion more than alarm in his eyes as he beholds the scene before him. “Here comes my man,” Tybalt says, allowing the poison he feels to seep into his tone. 

Mercutio startles and Tybalt suppresses a smirk. Mercutio’s wounds are newer than his own, he realizes. Perhaps the Montague pup inflicts them every day without knowing. It serves Mercutio right for everything he’s done, for his arrogance, for his— Tybalt cuts himself short abruptly. He is not here to taunt Mercutio for his wrongs. He is here for honor and for justice. Montague thinks he can simply go anywhere, do anything, and have no betrayal, no heartbreak for it. Then he must have penance. 

Lord Capulet is getting old. He is tired and he wants peace once more, if only to see his one surviving child, the sweet Juliet, nobly married. He wants to walk her down the aisle and to watch his grandchildren play in the garden and to die in his own bed. Such are the desires of all old men. But they had attempted peace once before, and it ended far too poorly. Tybalt will not be like his father. If his noble uncle is willing to repeat the mistakes of his youth, Tybalt is not about to let him. 

He was never supposed to be the last Capulet male heir – he is not even a Capulet by name. Yet that is his lot, and his father had taught him about honor and his mother about pride, and he would honor their memories with upholding the honor of the family they had revered and saw themselves as a part of. “Turn and draw!” he shouts at Romeo, unwilling to watch the wretched boy slink away. 

Romeo babbles something about love and Tybalt hears the Capulet retainers behind him laugh and jeer. It’s all well enough for the Montague pup to prove himself a dishonorable coward, but Tybalt wants to prove him more than that. He wants to finally settle this score. It isn’t as though the Montagues lack for heirs, brimming as they always were with sons, if only in the minor lines. But if Tybalt can do one thing, he will bring low this one golden boy of theirs. In an honorable duel, of course. The way a gentleman worthy of the name Capulet would. 

Mercutio, the meddlesome peacock, interferes before Romeo may be properly shamed into growing some spine. “Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?” Tybalt hears the ring of steel before he sees it. 

He turns, coolly, to face Mercutio. He wonders if Mercutio’s wretched Montague friends notice, if they can see what Tybalt sees. Because Tybalt sees desperation and pain behind Mercutio’s sneer and his hot bravado. He hears the small hitch in his voice when he tells Romeo his surrender is dishonorable. He sees the slight tremble in Mercutio’s hands – for barely a moment – when Romeo calls out for him to put his sword away. 

“I am for you,” Tybalt says. _You needn’t have loved him,_ is what he means. _He will not love you as you wish,_ his sword sings, _he does not see that it is for his sake you fight now. But if you wish to damn yourself, Mercutio, than I shall deliver._ He had always been too willing, after all. 

They circle each other, Mercutio’s grace and passion matched once again with Tybalt’s precision and elegance. Mercutio is like a storm – in everything: fighting, joking, loving, lovemaking. He howls through the world, carries away anything not too firmly rooted in the ground. Tybalt thinks he might have been a victim of it too, if he hadn’t had his honor to ground him. 

_If you wish to be a Montague dog, that is for you to be. Not for me to indulge,_ Tybalt had told him the last night they saw each other. 

Mercutio had grinned then, pained and sarcastic. _You play at being a knight, Tybalt, but you’re nothing but a cat in heat, tail up and claws out._ And then Mercutio had gone, as though he had never been there at all. And Tybalt can still feel the cold stone of the alley wall under his linen shirt, and the sting of angry tears that never fell. It was so like a Montague dog to say _love_ one day while they lay in bed, and to turn away the next, as soon as he was not catered to, and declare that he could live without the sun and Tybalt was nothing but a moon. 

He should have known better, should have realized that Montagues spread their poison to anything they touch. But the most valuable lessons are the hardest learned. 

Yet it is still a shock when his blade sinks into flesh. And somewhere inside of him, something tears with regret and horror at the blanched look of surprise on Mercutio’s face. Tybalt watches him fall, watches Romeo Montague catch him and hold him fast, cradling Mercutio’s head against his shoulder. In that moment, Tybalt knows he has lost by winning. 

He runs when urged to do so, but he cannot make himself go further than the nearest corner. He stops and leans hard against the nearest wall, his head pounding. It has all gone wrong without him meaning for it to. It is Romeo Montague he had wanted to fight – killing him in a fair fight would have been honorable. Especially after his encroachment on Tybalt’s family’s peace, at their own home. But Mercutio had done Tybalt no wrong that could be soothed with honor. The wrongs Mercutio had dealt him are too private to expose to the world. Yet, he could not have turned down Mercutio’s direct challenge. Dishonor is the one thing Tybalt cannot tolerate. Perhaps because honor is the only thing he truly has. 

He turns back, wonders if he will see Mercutio cradled in Romeo’s arms, the pair of them staring sorrowfully into each other’s eyes. But when he gets close enough, all he sees is Romeo on his knees on the blood-stained cobblestones, tears marring his face. The anguish there is greater than Tybalt expected – so it sees Tybalt has succeeded in taking something beloved from a Montague after all. Mercutio is nowhere in sight, but by Montague’s face, Tybalt _knows._

 _Did you get what you wanted in the end, Mercutio?_ Tybalt wonders. _Did he stroke your face and say_ love _and promise you the world if you would only stay? Or did you deprive yourself of even that by running your stupid mouth?_

Romeo jumps to his feet and grabs a sword. Mercutio’s sword, Tybalt notices. 

Now, now the brat shall fight. 

There is nothing left for Tybalt to do but to finish what he had started.


End file.
